Immediately after graduating from Fort Hare in 1945, Thelma Appavoo was offered a teaching post in Port Elizabeth. She did not accept the offer, explaining, ‘I’d already got engaged and those were the days, there wasn't so much women's lib, although I had my degree, my husband said, “no, no, no, don't you start go and teach now.” We’re getting married.’ Appavoo was married in 1946 and had two children. Her East London home was a frequent meeting place for Eastern Cape activists. She says, ‘we had a lot of people coming in and out, staying overnight. It wasn't unusual for someone to knock on the door at 12 at night, give them a meal, then before sunrise they’re gone.’ When we met, Appavoo was in East London in the house she had called home for more than 50 years.

After obtaining a B.Sc. degree in 1971, Jeff Baqwa abandoned study towards an honours degree in biochemistry in 1972 when he walked out of Fort Hare along with 41 others. He immediately began to work full-time for SASO as literacy director and community development projects coordinator. Baqwa also served on the SASO Executive Committee. In 1973, the National Party government served him with a banning order restricting him to the village of Mzimkulu in the Transkei. In 1974, following the assassination of Tiro, he was sent to Botswana to begin developing strategies for guerilla training. He was active in the establishment of the black consciousness guerilla camps in Tripoli, Libya and Beirut, Lebanon. Baqwa traveled throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Africa on in an attempt to spread the message of black consciousness and build solidarity for the black South African cause. He graduated from the University of Saarland Medical School in West Germany in 1988. He then did a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene and earned an MA in community health at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. He returned to South Africa in 1991, where he did research into community health elements of the country's health system. In 1994, he was the first black South African to be made a professor in the faculty of health sciences at UCT.